Linux Unwired [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Foreword

This is a book about two revolutions: free software and free wireless
networking.

The first revolution was born in 1991, when a lone Finnish hacker
named Linus Torvalds used the GNU Project's free C
compiler to build Linux, a free Unix-like operating system kernel.
One of the hallmarks of this kernel was its release under the GNU
Public License, which guaranteed that anyone would be able to
customize and improve the Linux kernel to suit their computing needs,
and that those improvements would be shared with the other users of
the Linux kernel.

Today, Linus Torvalds is virtually a household name, and his
brainchild has gone on to star in millions of personal computers, web
servers, supercomputing clusters, embedded devices, mainframes, and
more. Bolstered by the success of Linux and its BSD-derived cousins,
a globe-spanning Free Software movement has taken hold, spawning
thousands of community-supported projects, and fundamentally altering
how software is made and distributed in the
21^st century.

Although the second revolution has been lurking in the background for
years, it received a major boost in 1999 from the publication of the
IEEE 802.11b standard, a specification for wireless data networking
that made use of the 2.4 GHz microwave band, which had long been
considered "junk" spectrum in the
U.S. As consumer 802.11b devices hit the market, more and more people
were able to use computers and access the network from an ever
widening array of localesliving room couches, conference
rooms, coffee shops, and even sunny park benches.

Meanwhile, ordinary individuals were discovering that, using nothing
more than off-the-shelf radio hardware and the right antennas, they
could build wide-areaand even metropolitan-areaIP
network infrastructure for the first time ever, without the need for
costly or restrictive government licenses. The result has been a
quantum leap in ubiquitous computing, with millions of 802.11 devices
in use across the world. The newer IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g standards
are now implemented to offer even more possibilities for free data
networking.

The operative word at the heart of both of these revolutions is the
word "free," but the concept it
refers to is freedom. Trivially, they offer the opportunity to
download an operating system free of charge or perhaps to escape the
tyranny of Ethernet cables. But on a deeper level, these revolutions
promise basic freedoms of action and of speechthe freedom to
employ your computing hardware to communicate with others as you see
fit, and not merely as commercial interests dictate. Unlike many of
the technical choices available to you today, Linux and 802.11 serve
to enhance your freedom and expand your options, rather than to
constrain them.

As the title implies, Linux Unwired guides you
through configuring and using Linux with the 802.11 protocols, as
well as Bluetooth, IR, cellular data networking, and GPS. Ultimately,
though, this is a book about freedom. This book shows you how to
harness the combined power of these technologies to expand your
options and your technical horizons.

Welcome to the revolution(s). May you do good work!

Schuyler Erle

February, 2004